LITMIR.BIZ

       EPILOGUE

      SOPHIE LAY IN that delicious place between sleep and waking and for a moment she thought she was dreaming.

      The lap of the sea, the slow motion of rising and falling with the waves, and Sophie knew she was awake.

      She was on honeymoon with Luka.

      They were taking their time to sail from Corsica to the Greek islands, stopping where they chose to and just enjoying the journey.

      Life was better than she had ever dreamed it might be.

      It had been an emotional time. Her father had held on long enough to know that Sophie was expecting a baby. He had seen a summer and a winter in his beloved town and finally he now lay with Rosa.

      Sophie lay there thinking about the past months.

      It had been Sophie who had thrown her mother’s necklace in the grave. It was her mother’s, not hers.

      She didn’t want to wear it day in, day out.

      Instead, she wore her mother’s earrings, for they spoke of the happiest days with Luka.

      And there had been so many of them.

      Yes, she was stubborn, but never about that.

      ‘Morning,’ Luka said.

      ‘Where were you?’

      ‘Thinking,’ he said. ‘About us. Are you happy?’

      ‘So happy.’ she said, and then looked into his navy eyes. ‘And cross with myself for all the time we wasted.’

      ‘We needed that time,’ Luka interrupted. ‘We were young, there was a lot of pain and little of it was of our making.’

      ‘Even so.’

      ‘We know that what we have is precious,’ he said, and she nodded. ‘Had I married you when you were nineteen you might have always resented that you never got to work on the cruise liners.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Yes.’

      He smiled and always it made her stomach fold over and in on itself. He was so stern and serious with others, but so open with her.

      ‘And had we got together after the court case and then later found that chain...’ Luka thought about it. ‘I needed to find out about my father away from you.’ It was Luka who brought the name up at times and he was so grateful that her eyes didn’t flash in anger; instead, they could hold his gaze as they explored the pains of the past. ‘This is our time.’

      ‘So you don’t think I was wrong?’

      ‘Sophie...’

      ‘I didn’t make us waste all those years?’

      ‘Sophie,’ he warned, but he was smiling. ‘Come on, let’s go and see the sunrise.’

      ‘No, come back to bed,’ she grumbled, but Luka shook his head and she got out of bed, put on her sarong and tied it then headed up to the deck.

      The sky was gorgeous and just dipping out of navy and the stars were fading.

      ‘Where are we?’ Sophie asked, and then she paused as for the first time she saw her home from the sea.

      The sun was rising over Sicily and their yacht was close enough that she could make out the familiar landscape—the church where they had not only married but where both their parents rested. She could make out Luka’s home, the beach where they had made love.

      ‘I used to sit there every day with Bella,’ Sophie said. ‘Dreaming of the future, wondering what our lives would be like. I used to picture myself on a cruise liner out on the seas...’

      ‘And now here you are.’

      ‘I’m here with you,’ Sophie said, and then she told him a deeper truth, one she hadn’t told Bella. Not because she was scared to, she simply hadn’t dared admit it to herself, for it had seemed pointless that long-ago day.

      ‘Even though I didn’t want to be married, I wanted you then. I wanted it all, I just didn’t know how it could happen. How I could be out on the ocean and sailing the seas and somehow be with the man I loved. Yet here I am.’

      ‘We can dock,’ Luka said. ‘Spend a couple of days there if you wish.’

      Sophie thought about it. The people would make them more than welcome. They had their homes back and Bordo Del Cielo was thriving now.

      Yet there was no need to go back, no need to visit.

      Not now

      One day maybe.

      They were having a daughter, and they would take her back and, far more gently than they both had, she would learn about her past, about the pain and the beauty of the land that ran through her veins.

      But not now.

      Now, as Bordo Del Cielo awoke, it was Sophie and Luka that were the glint of a boat on the horizon.

      They were out there, together, and living their dreams.

      * * * * *

      Read on for an extract from BOUND BY THE BILLIONAIRE’S BABY by Cathy Williams.